


Stories Dismissed as Myth

by auberus, Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Don’t copy to another site, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auberus/pseuds/auberus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: Cory and Alysse find Methos on the high seas, and then descend on Port Royal to include Matthew in the fun.





	Stories Dismissed as Myth

**Author's Note:**

> Unebeta'd and unedited.

I've dabbled in most sorts of thievery over the years, from highway robbery to picking pockets. Piracy is a new one, and I'll admit that I fell into it out of a combination of the desire to irritate Matthew and happy accident. If my esteemed teacher hadn't decided to join the British Navy, I'd never have headed into the Caribbean, and if I hadn't done that, I'd never have been captured by the pirates from whom I stole the _Phoebe_. It's all worked out rather well, if I do say so myself, especially once I ran into Alysse. She knows a good bit more about sailing than I do, and she does a better job of keeping the crew in line than I could be bothered with. Besides, the fact that she's with me makes Matthew absolutely *insane*.

We're currently two days out from Bermuda, lurking along the main trading routes. I prefer Spanish prey when I can get it, but I'll take what I can get - and at the moment, that looks to be a ship flying the Union Jack.

"Alysse!" I call, already anticipating the impending fight.

* * *

The anticipation in Cory's voice made Alysse grin, her hands steady on the wheel. She hadn't been merely first mate in centuries, and it was a bit strange to be back under someone else's command, though better than being trapped on land. Or worse, in the gibbet she'd barely escaped when the British had sunk the last ship she'd sailed.

"Aye, captain? A bit of prey for us?" She could see the ship on the horizon, but without the spy-glass, she couldn't make out more than the fact it had to be larger than a fishing vessel. Merchant or military, and its colors were the only questions that mattered to her now.

"Looks like a British merchantman to me." Which will only serve to further infuriate Matthew - which is sort of the entire point of this little piracy jaunt. It should also help with one or two charitable projects Cory's got going. He's not sure if Alysse has figured out what he's doing with his cut of their spoils yet; if she has, she's been very discreet about it. It's not something that would impress the crew, that much is certain.

Alysse laughed, her grin turning predatory as she called orders to the crew, shifting their course to intercept the other ship, putting on as much sail as she thought they could carry, to catch the ship quicker. "Fine prey, that, if not as good as a Spanish galleon fool enough to sail alone."

She had carefully kept herself ignorant of what Cory spent his share of the spoils on, hoping he had the sense to not notice her own careful use of her share. Eventually it would buy her a new ship, if Cory didn't tire of the ocean, and leave the _Phoebe_ to her, as he'd never quite struck her as the sort to stay on a ship for more than a lifetime, if even that long.

"A Spanish galleon wouldn't raise Matthew's hackles quite as high," Cory grins, checking his pistols to be sure that they were primed and loaded. "And they haven't been sailing alone very often lately. I suppose our depredations are beginning to take their toll." He's already planning their post-battle itinerary. There are a few plantations that are willing to sell him slaves - he always offers them their choice of freedom on land or freedom on the _Phoebe_. He's also been planning on some raids against the more recalcitrant plantation owners, and a visit to Port Royal to tweak Matthew's nose.

"True enough." Alysse shrugged, keeping her eyes focused on the steadily growing ship, making adjustments to their course to keep on it. She didn't do this to tweak anyone's nose, though she had run into more than one Immortal who took exception to her line of work over the centuries. It was just what she knew and loved.

Once they were too close for the other ship to actually outrun them, she called out the order to hoist the colors, turning the wheel over to the second mate so she could join the boarding party herself. Waiting next to Cory as they steadily came closer, close enough to hail the ship, and demand they heave to and prepare to be boarded - not that she anticipated they'd do so without a fight.

The other ship has a full forty guns, but the _Phoebe_  is more than a match for her. Cory lets out a whoop of excitement as both sets of cannon go off at once; then his eyes widen. "There's an Immortal on that ship!" he shouts over the din, knowing that only Alysse is close enough to hear him. He's got no interest in the Quickening, and he doubts Alysse does either - but an Immortal captive will provide a good ransom, unless it's Hugh Fitzcairn, who never has any money. Of course, if it is Fitz, Cory will probably be able to persuade the man to sail with them for a while.

"Perhaps this ship was more a lucky chance than we thought, then!" Alysse laughed, grabbing the rigging as she leapt up onto the rail, holding on as the _Phoebe_ sailed closer, the crew tossing grapples to snug them up against the merchant. There wasn't enough time for a second broadside, and she grinned wildly at the merchant crew as she made herself a bit of a target. She didn't care if one crew or the other figured out she was Immortal - the last crew she'd led had certainly known, though they'd taken her secret to a watery grave, or a gibbet.

That, and making herself a target might well draw the other Immortal's attention, and keep them focused on her while Cory closed in on whoever it was. The anticipation of the money - or at least entertainment - that could be had from an Immortal captive only made her grin widen as she searched the other crew for the source of the buzz that had washed over her as they came closer to the ship.

The instant the two ships are close enough, Cory swings across with a yell of joy, firing his pistol at the sailor who rushes at him the minute his boots hit the other deck. The next fifteen minutes are a brilliant, bloody melee, and all the time the other Immortal's Presence sings in the back of his head. He parries a badly-aimed thrust and dispatches his attacker, then spins to take care of a sailor creeping up behind him.

Methos's plans to spend the entire voyage to the Caribbean in his cabin, save for meals with the captain, had not included dealing with another Immortal before he reached dry land. Much less the two he could sense as the pirate ship drew alongside the merchant he had booked passage on. He gritted his teeth, and took another shot at a pirate who came too close for his taste, wondering who or what he'd offended most recently as he looked for the Immortals he could feel at the back of his mind.

Swinging across once the crew had snugged them fast to the merchant, Alysse drew her saber, reveling in the battle as she tried to make herself a target. Daring the sailors to try to kill her, gleefully taunting them as she made her way further onto the other ship. Wondering just what it would take to draw the other Immortal out, instead of lying as low as he could, wherever he was on the ship.

Cory kicks his latest casualty off his blade and is looking around for the next one when he spots the other Immortal. It's no one he recognizes, sadly - he really was half-hoping it would turn out to be Fitz - tall and skinny and dark-haired, with a truly impressive nose. Strangely enough, the man is still relying on his pistols, rather than on his sword - a sign of youth, perhaps? When he finally looks over at Cory, the latter salutes him with both grin and blade.

"You could surrender now!" he shouts, over the din of battle, making sure to keep one or two fighters in between himself and the other Immortal's guns. "A little sailing, a little ransom, and we'll even drop you off in Port Royal!"

The lack of a clear shot wouldn't always be enough to keep Methos from taking one, but on the deck of a ship, and with his current persona to keep intact, he didn't dare shoot those in his way of taking out the other Immortal. He reloaded, still avoiding drawing the rapier he carried, a calculated refusal, particularly after the offer from the other Immortal. Though it was tempting to take that offer, if it weren't for the fact he expected it would involve more sailing than he really wanted to contemplate.

"I'll pass!" he shouted back, even though he could see the pirates had the upper hand, the sailors steadily either begin slaughtered, or trying to escape. He still hadn't spotted the other Immortal yet, though he wondered if perhaps the woman who'd made a target of herself earlier was the second. She'd certainly been reckless enough for a young Immortal.

"Oh, come on," Cory shouts back. "What's your alternative? A duel, exposure - and then you end up as a hostage all the same! I'm **really**  not interested in your head! Your money's another matter entirely." He shoves a reeling sailor out of his way, and hits the man over the head for good measure. "Think of it as your chance to do some good!"

"A pirate doing good?" Methos actually could almost believe it, though he wouldn't let that show. "I spent the last of my money on this trip, there's nothing for you take." He stood straighter, watching as the pirates mopped up the rest of the merchant sailors, spotting the woman as she climbed onto the foredeck, to deal with the captain and first mate, he expected.

Cory shrugs. It's not an unfamiliar attitude, though the usual word is 'thief' rather than 'pirate'. 

"I'm subsidizing two orphanages, and freeing as many slaves as I can afford. Well. More, really." He gives the other Immortal his most persuasive smile. "Come on, put down the guns. I'll let you keep your sword - I really am not interested in your head, and I'm not in the mood to get shot today." He glances over, checking on Alysse, and on the rest of his crew. Things seem to be well in order, so he turns his attention back to his soon-to-be guest. "Come on - don't make me kill you."

That's one thing he'd rather avoid, if for no better reason than he'd heal faster than an Immortal as young as he's pretending to be would. Methos eyed the man warily, though with the surrender of the rest of the crew, he had less to lose if he surrendered than if he didn't. He made a reluctant show of setting down the pistols he had been using, giving the other Immortal the sort of sullen glare that befitted his persona.

"Only because I have no other choice." He paused, silent a moment before he asked, "Who's the other of our kind? I thought I felt more than one of you."

"Over there," Cory says, nodding at Alysse, who is currently threatening the captain of the captured ship most effectively. "My first mate." He relieves the stranger of his guns, and grins. "Don't look so glum. A little ransom, and you're on your way. I told you I'd deliver you to Port Royal, and I meant it." He sticks out his hand. "Cory Raines."

Taking the offered hand after a moment, Methos eyed Cory before glancing at the woman. Female Immortals and female pirates were both rare, and in combination, he suspected he knew who she was. By rumor, though, and those had put her favorite territory firmly on the other side of the globe. "Edward Linwood."

"A pleasure," Cory says urbanely. The calluses on Linwood's hands name him anything but a novice; he wonders idly if Matthew will recognize the man when they do dump him off in Port Royal. "Come along, then - I've even a cabin for you, in case you turned out to be Hugh Fitzcairn." He raises his voice to reach Alysse's ears. "Alysse! I'm taking our mutual friend back to the _Phoebe_. Can you take care of the rest of our business here, or should I return?"

Alysse grinned at Cory, holding up the captain's sword as she glanced at the man with him. Nothing notable, not to her eyes, and not even looking particularly wealthy, at least not at the moment. "All is well, captain! We'll have this prize cleaned out well enough."

The glee Methos could hear in her voice didn't bode well for the captain having enough to cover expenses when he made it back to port. He gave her another brief look before he followed Cory off the merchant ship. Hoping that his journey on the pirate ship wouldn't be too long. He'd had enough of sailing for the century.

"British?" Cory asks, as he ushers their new guest on board and down to the one empty cabin on the entire ship. "Or just appropriating the accent?" His own accent - or rather, the accent he's been borrowing from Matthew for the past four hundred years - is starting to fade into New World sloppiness, but Linwood's is as cut-glass as Matthew's own.

"Here we go - give me your parole, and you can have the run of the ship; otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have to lock you in, and probably confiscate your blade. If you read, I've a few books in my own cabin." Most Immortals don't, even now, but Matthew had insisted, and Cory had had little choice in the matter, though he'd made his teacher's head ache as often as possible during instruction.

"British," Methos lied with ease, giving Cory the sort of affronted look Edward would, at the assumption that he was anything but British. "I still have family there, even if they only remember me from stories." That much was true, though they were more his late wife's family than his.

He paused, looking at the cabin he'd been offered. No better or worse than the one he'd occupied on the merchant ship, at least. Giving his parole wasn't much of a decision, as he wasn't about to allow Cory to take his sword. "You have my word I won't try to escape, or cause trouble with your crew."

British nationality means that his parole is most likely good, though Cory isn't about to leave the man on his own, at least not right away. If he's young enough to still have family that remembers him, even vaguely... Cory's not entirely sure he believes that, but he's no reason not to, save his own gut feeling.

"Done," he says decisively. "We'll eat in a few hours - once we've sorted out our captives and loot, that is. Alysse will handle that, though - I'm mostly interested in the spending part." He eyes the other man curiously. "Where were you headed? If Port Royal doesn't float your boat, I'll get you as close as I can to your original destination. There's another of us at Port Royal, you understand - though Matthew won't be any more interested in your head than I am." He can't keep the smirk off his face, and doesn't bother. "He's much more interested in hanging me from the nearest tree - again."

"A man of good taste, then," Methos remarked dryly. He would rather avoid other Immortals, and at the moment, although he is at least passingly familiar with Matthew of Salisbury - and he has a fair idea that's who Cory is referring to - and trusts the man really won't want his head. Port Royal, though is a good place to find other passage, to take him to the Americas rather than the Caribbean.

He stepped inside the cabin, sitting on the bunk as it was the only suitable surface to do so. "Port Royal will be fine, thank you." Salisbury is far better an Immortal to deal with, a known quantity, than dealing with Cory on a longer voyage than necessary.

"You know Matthew, do you?" Cory asks, leaning casually against the wall. "He was my teacher, lo these many years ago." If the man really does know Matthew, it should put him at his ease, at least slightly - anyone with any real knowledge of Matthew will know that none of his surviving students are likely to be head hunters. "I'm surprised he didn't mention me when you met." It's part arrogance, part the knowledge that he drives Matthew absolutely nuts.

"We have met, briefly. We didn't speak much of students, or particularly of other Immortals." Methos only relaxes outwardly, and not too much. Even if he can trust Cory not to take his head, he can't say the same of Alysse, and he hasn't survived as long as he has by trusting others. "What of your first mate, Alysse?"

"Alysse? Fantastic girl, really. If I hadn't found her, I'd probably have sunk this ship inside of a week. She does the sailing, and mostly lets me decide about the stealing. She won't be interested in your head either; at least, she's never been interested in taking mine, or anyone else's, that I've seen."

"I hope she won't be, I'm still rather attached to it." Methos gave Cory a wry smile that faded quickly. Just because she hadn't shown any interest in those she'd met while sailing with Cory didn't mean she wouldn't be interested in any. Certainly, though, if rumor were true, he would imagine she wouldn't issue a challenge, even if she would accept them on the deck of a ship.

An attitude that assumed a woman wasn't as capable as a man was one he'd cultivated for this persona, however, and the hint of arrogant disbelief in his voice was deliberate as he asked, "How is it she knows more about sailing than you?"

Cory laughs. "Because I know sod-all about ships, that's how, and Alysse is better at it than anyone I've ever met." He gives the other Immortal a sharp look. "Here, you're not stupid enough to think that she's any less qualified because she's a woman, are you?" He shakes his head. "Any female Immortal who's managed to survive for any significant amount of time is probably twice as dangerous as a man of the same age. Matthew's teacher was a woman, and I wouldn't take her on even if you tied one of her hands behind her back."

He knew well enough that Immortal women were more dangerous than their male counterparts, but Edward hadn't learned that yet, and he let his skepticism show. "Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily more capable in other matters." Let Cory think he was young, still arrogant in his Immortality, and perhaps a bit of a fool.

Cory shakes his head. "You'll learn." Or he wouldn't, and he'd underestimate some woman and she'd make sure he never learned anything again. "Alysse is a brilliant sailor. I'm pretty sure she's more used to having a ship of her own, but she puts up with my incompetence in all matters nautical, and I stay out of her way." He flops down across the bed, and pushes his hair out of his eyes. "So - I think a thousand gold guineas is a suitable ransom for you."

"If I had a thousand gold guineas," Methos retorted, though he knew he easily had that much, no matter what currency Cory was thinking in. Just not exactly in any place he could easily access it, or would be willing to reveal to another Immortal. "I might manage a thousand pounds sterling in credit, but I wouldn't be certain that it would purchase you a thousand pieces of gold of any significant weight."

"Alternately, you could sail with us until you've earned that much," Cory suggests. "We could always use another set of hands, and if you turn out to be any good with a blade, so much the better." He rubs idly at a bit of black on his fingers, but it doesn't come off. Powder, probably. He's about due for a bath.

The idea of sailing - even if it hadn't involved other Immortals - for as long as it took to earn a sum of money Edward wouldn't have was almost more dismal than losing one of his various stashes. Methos watched Cory with narrowed eyes a moment as he weighed his options. Depending on what exactly his share of any prize taken was, it wouldn't necessarily take too long to acquire the needed money, and it certainly would be simpler, if more likely to risk the death of this persona at the end of a rope.

On the other hand, it would risk reveling a depth of knowledge with a sword that took more than one lifetime to acquire. Better that, though, than allow Cory to suspect he could use a far greater arsenal than what he visibly carried.

"Besides," Cory says, giving up getting the powder off of his hand as a bad job, or at least one that's going to require immersion in water, "it should put paid to your skepticism about Alysse's sailing. And who knows? Maybe you'll decide you like being a pirate. It's certainly one of the more interesting things I've done for the past few centuries."

"I doubt I'll like being a pirate." It involved far too much sailing to appeal to him now. Perhaps if he'd turned down the offer to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat a few centuries earlier, it might hold more interest to him, particularly when he was feeling particularly cynical about humanity. "I'll be content to pay off my debt, and then getting off this ship."

"Not fond of the ocean?" Cory smirks. Edward's a hard man to read, but the distaste in his last sentences was impossible to miss. "I don't usually enjoy it much myself, but the waters around here are much more pleasant than those around England. Except during storm season, anyway." He loves the Caribbean. It's warm and sunlit and filled with the sorts of possibilities that keep Immortality from ever getting too boring.

"No, I don't particularly enjoy being on the ocean. It's an unfortunate necessity, however." And he could well imagine the sort of havoc a storm could wreck when it hit, and he could only hope that he was off the pirate ship when the storm season arrived.

"Why the aversion?" Cory asks, switching his attention from his hands to the bloodstained rent in his left sleeve where a musket ball passed just a little too close during the earlier fight. He hadn't even felt it at the time. Poking a finger through the hole, he glances up at Edward through his lashes. "You don't appear to suffer from seasickness."

The truth wasn't something he was willing to share, but something more in the vein that would suit Edward. "It's difficult to predict, and incredibly destructive when whipped up by a storm. I prefer to be where the worst neighbors are wild animals or other people, not the earth or seas."

"The ocean may be unpredictable and destructive, but at least it's never deliberately cruel," Cory says darkly, thinking of the monies he's given away over the centuries to soothe the pains caused by just those sorts of cruelties. Fortunately, he's never been the melancholy sort, or given to brooding. "Damn it," he mutters. "This shirt's a lost cause." Which is a shame - he's always been rather fond of it.

Methos bites back a snort, wondering just what sort of cruelties that Cory is thinking of. Slavery is nothing new, though the idea that those being enslaved were inherently inferior in some manner was. And there would always be orphans, more cared for by the community around them than put into the institutions Cory had mentioned. He didn't find either of those particularly cruel, merely facts of life.

"Neither are most people. Those that are, are the exception, not the rule," he finally observes, unwilling to let the comment go by utterly unremarked.

"Agreed," Cory says, abandoning his rueful contemplation of his ruined shirt in favor of studying his boots, which are also in need of repair. "Most people are depressingly average, both in their cruelties and their kindnesses. A man whose cruelty is excessive, however, does more damage than any number of ordinary men's lives can reverse." He pulls a sour face, and glares at his boots, then lets his foot drop back to the floor. "I suppose I'd best get up and find out what's going on with whatever loot we pulled off of your ship, and find out what we're doing with the rest of her passengers." He sighs, and heaves himself to his feet. "You're welcome to come with me, if you like."

Methos didn't respond immediately, but he nodded, as he preferred to make sure certain items of his luggage didn't make it into the hands of the rest of the crew. He had some books that he doubted even the Immortals on the ship would appreciate the value of. Of course, that he'd taken to using dead languages to write his journals in would have some small part in that.

"There's a trunk with books in it that I would rather not see accidentally destroyed," he said, in lieu of actually saying he'd like to accompany Cory.

"Oh? Anything worth reading?" Matthew had insisted on teaching Cory to read almost immediately after taking him on as a student, and though Cory had resisted valiantly at the time, he's since grown to be grateful to his teacher. He opens the door to Edward's room and ushers the other Immortal up to the deck.

"If you're a student of languages, perhaps." Methos shrugged one shoulder, a bit of a smirk on his face. "I haven't finished any of the translations, but they appear to be journals of some sort." He climbed the stairs to the deck, glad for the stabilizing effect lashing the two ships together appeared to have.

* * *

"Cory!" Alysse balanced on the rail again, one hand wrapped around the rigging as she supervised the transfer of goods from one ship to the other. "So what has our guest decided?"

"That he can't afford our ransom." Cory shrugs lightly. "I've told him he can either pay, or stay with us until he's earned it. Assuming he's any good with a sword, it shouldn't take him too long." He eyes the various items being brought onto the _Phoebe_  with interest. "What have we got here, then? Tell me we've at least made good the cost of shot and powder."

"Aye. They're light on goods, but that's more than made up with silver. And I've the crew lightening them of some powder and cannon shot to replace those spent on them." Alysse studied the man as he came closer, glancing at Cory. "The captain had a small cache of rum in his cabin that I've liberated, as well. It's now in your cabin, to keep the crew from drinking it all tonight."

Methos paused at the railing, waiting patiently for Cory to finish talking with Alysse. He didn't intend to give any of the crew the chance to think he was trying to escape, and shoot him. As well as the fact it would take two people to safely move the chest from one ship to the other.

"Excellent." Cory nods his approval. "We'll pass out a few measures tonight, in celebration, and keep the rest in reserve." He's not fool enough to be unaware that the crew has their own stashes of rum secreted about the ship. "I think we'll go ahead and take all of their shot and powder. I don't want anyone getting any bright ideas as we're sailing away."

"Aye, captain." Alysse's grin widened, and she relayed the order to the crew, as well as the promise of rum later. She wasn't unaware of the stashes of rum, but it always helped to have the captain share his own once in a while. "We haven't looked through the passenger cabins yet; thought I'd leave that to when you were done with getting our guest sorted."

At least there was that much assurance that his books - and other belongings - were still safely in his cabin, in their trunks. Even if Methos doubted the rest of the pirate crew were as trustworthy as Cory was trying to make himself out to be.

"Well, our guest has expressed some concern for his books, and I see no reason not to let him have them," Cory admits. "As for the rest of them - we'll take what we can, and leave them the rest. No clothing," he decides, "and we need to be sure that they've enough food and water to make it to shore." Grinning crookedly at Alysse, he extends his arm. "Shall we?"

Alysse chuckled, taking the offered arm with the air of indulging a custom she didn't understand. Watching their guest out of the corner of her eye as they headed toward the merchant's passenger cabins. "Now what would I want to do with clothing? Mine's still in fine enough repair, and I've no want for anything fancy," she teased.

"You'd look good in something fancy," Cory grins, then shrugs again. "I just don't want to leave these people with nothing." He looks around the first cabin and whistles under his breath. "Of course, that might take some doing." The cabin is richly appointed, the cloth in it all velvet and fine linen. "This sort of thing we can take, however."

Alysse grinned in anticipation, stepping away to start going through the cabin for more than just the rich fabrics that had been hidden here. "Clearly the captain had some thought to the fact his ship might be raided, though not enough."

Methos didn't even stop to look in the more expensive cabins that he'd carefully not tried to hire, going directly to his own, plainer and more simply furnished, as he mentally catalogued what to remove. The trunk of books, with the hidden compartment at the bottom that held a case with another pair of pistols. The trunk of clothing, with his Ivanhoe wrapped and stowed at the bottom. Even if he more often used the rapier he carried openly, he wasn't about to leave his best sword behind when he left England.

Both would require assistance to move to the other ship, and the trunk of books didn't have the internal dimensions needed to fit Ivanhoe into it, or he'd abandon the other trunk.

"I doubt he expected to be overborne," Cory chuckles, as he begins to search the room for the usual sorts of hiding places - drawers and trunks with false bottoms, jewels tied up in the toes of stockings - all of the precautions that travelers have been taking for centuries. "If he was the one demonstrating his large and varied command of obscenities up on deck, I'd say he almost certainly thought he'd make it unmolested."

"And the sort to take affront that a woman dare come aboard his ship, and demand his surrender." Alysse rolled her eyes, emptying a clothing chest to tap on the bottom. "This one's hollow." It took a little bit of effort to find the catch, and open it up. "Ah, now here's enough to cover those costs, and more than. Someone's a ransom's worth of polished gems, and a few bottles of wine."

"Not any more, they don't," Cory says gleefully, and lifts one of the bottles for a closer look. "Vintage wine, at that. No wonder they hid it away. Excellent, excellent work, Alysse."

The rest of the cabins weren't quite as lucrative, but there were enough hidden riches to make the entire operation a success five or six times over. Halfway through their search of the second, Cory opened one of the bottles of wine, and took a long drink before offering it to Alysse.

She grinned, downing a draught before she handed it back. "It's a pity I can't find anything that would give me a taste of home this side of the American continent. I'd introduce you to a real drink." Pausing, she glanced down toward the rest of the cabins, the ones for passengers not willing to pay as much. "What about the books he mentioned worries him, do you think?"

"Books are expensive," Cory shrugs. "I spilled a flagon of wine across Matthew's copy of Cicero once, and I thought he was going to hang me again." He takes another drink. "Maybe he's smuggling state secrets or something. He mentioned other languages, and journals of some kind. They might be worth taking a look at, if we can arrange it, but I see no reason not to let him bring them aboard." He smiles. "In fact, bringing them aboard would be the best option. Otherwise, getting a look at them would likely prove impossible." He hands the bottle back to her. "What sort of drinks do you prefer, then?"

"There are islands off the coast of Asia, the Japans you Europeans call them. They have a wonderful rice wine called sake." Alysse chuckled, shrugging. "But better, tuba or lambanog from the islands I've called home more often of late. Tuba doesn't keep as well, perhaps, as your wines, but lambanog... Ah, there is a good strong drink, and not so hard to keep. Made from the palm tree, the both of them."

She rather liked the idea that perhaps the journals their guest was concerned about were worth something more than just the simple price of a book. No matter how expensive a book, ones that contained information someone wanted were always more valuable.

"We've palm trees around here," Cory reminds her. "I've no objection to putting into shore for a bit while you make this lambanog." He smiles. "I'm always eager for new experiences, especially if they involve getting drunk." He casts a glance in the direction Alysse had been looking. "Shall we go and find our guest, and see if he's found what he needs?"

"Aye, to that. But you don't have the best sort of palm for making tuba and lambanog." Alysse shrugged. "Our guest certainly has had enough time to hide what he wants to hide. After you, captain." She waved Cory ahead of her, grinning as she followed, the cabin with their guest easy enough to find with the buzz to lead them.

Methos looked up as the other Immortals came closer, closing the lid of his clothing trunk, what belongings he wasn't leaving behind stored between it and the book trunk. So long as they didn't ask to see what he intended to take to the other ship, it would be safe enough.

"Ready to go?" Cory asks brightly. "Can I assume that you're not bringing anything particularly dangerous aboard my ship?"

"Nothing more dangerous than you already have on board." Methos nodded to the two trunks he'd repacked. "The smaller one is the one with the books. The other is my clothing." That he wouldn't wear an outfit to rags went without saying, even though the more precious thing in the trunk wasn't the clothing.

"Clothing?" Alysse laughed, shaking her head. "Seems our guest has a need for something fancy himself. I'll get one of the crew to help with that. Not enough hands between us to carry that, and the little fortune the captain hid in the other cabins."

"Go ahead." Cory waves her out. "I find myself wanting a look at these books of yours, Edward. If I may." He's no linguist, but Matthew had dinned Latin, Greek, French, English and German into his head centuries earlier, and he's kept up with the changes in the latter three, despite being not at all inclined towards scholarship. He's also picked up a few languages on his own, though not the reading of them; still, books are, as he'd told Alysse, rare and precious things, and who knows what Edward might have in that trunk of his.

Methos hesitated, a frown on his face. He didn't particularly want Cory going through his personal journals, even though he was confident that the younger Immortal couldn't read them. "Some of them, perhaps. Others I've yet to finish translating, and I doubt you'd be capable of reading them. I'm barely able to puzzle them out myself, and unless you're more a scholar than you appear, I wouldn't lay money on your abilities being any greater in that arena."

"I'm not as ignorant as I look," Cory laughs. "Matthew was well-educated, and he did his best to pass it on to me, despite my - at times - strenuous resistance." He steps forward, laying one hand on the trunk holding the books. "May I? If I can't read them, I assure you that I'll admit defeat."

Waving a hand after a moment, Methos settled onto the bunk, watching Cory with an almost unreadable expression, only a faint mocking amusement in his eyes. So long as Cory didn't try to look beyond the books, he wouldn't object - though he didn't like the risk inherent in someone looking at his personal journals.

The first book is absolutely illegible. It would be all Greek to Cory, except that he reads Greek. This looks more like the sort of thing he's seen on various Egyptian antiquities, and is fascinating in its own right. He settles onto the other trunk as he flips through the pages, then reaches for the next one. It's no more legible than the first, but by now Cory feels himself to be on a mission. It's not until he's leafing through the fifth notebook that he realizes what he's seeing - and he only realizes it because he's taught himself to copy anyone's handwriting should it become necessary. Appearances aside, he's no fool, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the pages even as they widen involuntarily. He can't be sure if Edward knows that all of these were written by the same man or not, and until he knows more of his new acquaintance, it's something best kept to himself.

The recognition that flares on Cory's face reminds Methos of the greatest reason why he hates being on the ocean. The absolute inability to get away from people at a moment's notice, a trick he's refined to a science and an art over his long life. He isn't certain Cory's connected the journals to him, but he's certainly made the connection between them, and that's dangerous in itself.

"Satisfied?" he asks, his voice light, and vaguely amused, raising an eyebrow at Cory. He'll have to remember not to write very often on the ship, and only when he's certain Cory is sleeping. The latest journal is at the bottom of the trunk, the writing kit with it, though once he's on the pirate ship, and has the privacy to do so, he'll have to move the journal to the hiding place the pistols currently take up. They'll be safe enough with the Ivanhoe, but the journal has to be kept hidden from Cory, with its fresh writing in a language Edward wouldn't be using.

"Not entirely," Cory admits. "I was hoping there would be something worth reading." The languages used may be ancient, but the books themselves are not, and something about that is nagging at Cory's memory, though it's nothing he can nail down at the moment. He puts the book he'd been holding back in the trunk and closes it again, just as Alysse reappears with two of the more muscular members of their crew.

"Alysse," Cory says, corralling her with a hand on her shoulder as the trunks are lifted and removed from Edward's former cabin, "was there anyone else on board worth ransoming?"

"No one else on board but the crew, and none of them struck me as anymore wealthy than the usual sailor." Alysse frowned, watching their guest follow his trunks a moment before looking back at Cory. "Why? Something off about the contents of our guest's trunks?"

"Not...off, exactly. His books are in upwards of a dozen languages, and all written by the same hand. Call it a curiosity, rather than an actual threat. I think at some point I'm going to have to examine both trunks more closely, without Edward's being present when I do." He gives Alysse his most charming smile. "I'm sure you can think of a suitable distraction. Unless, of course, you read Ancient Egyptian, in which case I'll do the distracting, and you can share what you learn with me rather than vice versa."

Shaking her head, Alysse looked down the corridor a moment. "I read Mandarin and Sanskrit and Hanunó'o, but not others. I barely even read your English, and that only because no one since I came here writes in any language I've learned before. Not even in an alphabet I have learned before. But a distraction I can provide."

"The Sanskrit might do it," Cory admits. "With the exception of hieroglyphic, I didn't recognize any of the languages used. If all else fails, we could take a few of them to Matthew - though we'd likely need a flag of truce. I didn't get to look through all of them - there might be a few in there that I can puzzle out - but whether I can or no, we've a pretty mystery in front of us, and no mistake." He looks pensively after Edward and his trunks. "He's got calluses to match Matthew's, or even best them, but he acts like a green idiot at times. I'm not sure if it's deliberate or not."

"Anyone who's survived more than a handful of centuries has their techniques, Cory. Some are more effective than others." Alysse frowned, shaking her head. "Though what pretending to be a rank amateur gains one of us, I don't know. If he is older than he makes out he is, at least. It is possible he really is just a very lucky young Immortal. Or a headhunter."

That idea she didn't like, but she had used the ocean as her best ally for centuries, and doubted it would be less valuable than it had in the past, if the man turned out to be more trouble than puzzle.

"I doubt he's a headhunter," Cory says. "Or if he is, he's the most unusual one I've ever met. He never went for his sword during the fight, or even afterwards, and he knows Matthew - and Matthew's not exactly a fan of headhunters." He shakes his head. "I'm not sure what purpose pretending to be an amateur might have - unless there's something about him that might make even Immortals with no interest in the Game want his head."

"At least your teacher is a good judge of character." Alysse shrugged. "Though I doubt there really is anything that would tempt me to actually covet someone's head. Perhaps to make them swim the miles to shore, to deflate an ego, but not to wish to take another's head."

"Point," Cory acknowledges. "Though if he were the Kurgan, or that Melvin Koren bastard, it might be a different story." He's not really a good judge of what might be a good reason to take a head, though, having only taken six in his entire life, and those only when the battle had been forced upon him. He points out as much to Alysse. "I mean, there are Immortals in their first century who've taken more heads than I have."

"Aye, there are." Alysse shrugged. "It isn't so bad a thing to be selective in the heads you take, though. I try to keep to those who are fool enough to challenge me on the deck of my own ship. Why do you think I much prefer to be on the ocean than on land?" She grinned at Cory. "Come, let's leave such worries for the night. If he's fool enough to cause trouble, we've a whole ocean to dispose of him in."

"Somehow, I don't think that would end very well for us," Cory mutters, but he follows Alysse out anyway, and once the _Phoebe_ 's deck is back under his feet, feels a good deal better about things.

Alysse gives the order to cut the merchant free once the crew is all back aboard the _Phoebe_ , waving cheerily at the sailors as the second mate steers them on a course that will take them toward Bermuda. That the raid was more profitable than they'd originally anticipated made for a good day, and the rum later would keep everyone in good cheer, at least until they'd been in port long enough to spend their share of the bounty.

It's not long at all before Cory is pleasantly and decidedly intoxicated, curled up in the riggings above the deck with a still half-full bottle of truly excellent cognac liberated from one of the cabins. He's humming to himself, a bawdy tune that had done the rounds of France and England in the fifteenth century, and was now popular as a children's tune, and staring up at the stars. They'll be in port in a few days, and Cory will have worries enough then; tonight, he's just letting his mind drift with the waves.

* * *

Methos is glad he's hidden his current journal, as he works at scrubbing down the deck - not the first chore the first mate's put him to, and from her grin, she's enjoying this entirely too much. It doesn't help that he hasn't seen Cory since Alysse had corralled him, dragging him up to the deck to "assist with the chores of the crew".

"Oi, Linwood! You missed a spot!" Alysse smiled at the glare from their guest, her hands steady on the wheel. She could have found a more pleasant distraction to give Cory the chance to look at those journals again, but after the scowl she'd received when she had caught up with Linwood, she was finding this far more entertaining.

Cory is currently engaged in searching Linwood's cabin from top to bottom. It's next to impossible to hide something from a good thief who has time to search for it; it's completely impossible to hide anything at all from Cory Raines under those circumstances, as Matthew has found to his repeated despair.

All told, it takes less than half an hour for Cory to find the journal in question, and he immediately seats himself in the bolted-down chair at the bolted-down desk, taking out the quill and parchment he'd brought with him. He'd resisted furiously Matthew's attempts at teaching him to read, only to stop resisting abruptly when the possibilities of forgery opened up in front of him like a virgin landscape.

Now, lacking the ability to decipher the journal in the time allotted to him, he's resorted to that particular talent. That the journal is in a language he doesn't understand makes little difference. The pages he copies are by habit nearly indistinguishable from the originals, and he folds them away in the breast of his shirt with a satisfied chuckle before stowing the journal back where he'd found it.

When Cory emerges from below deck, Alysse's grin widens, and she bellows for Linwood to get his scrawny arse up in the rigging, and help reef the topsails. Giving her enough space to ask Cory what he found, once their guest is up doing his job, and Cory's joined her at the wheel.

"Well? Is it as interesting as you said it'd be?"

"Not sure yet," Cory admits. "I didn't have time to do anything but copy it - but give me a few hours with it; I ought to be able to get the general sense of it, at least." He pulled the pages out and handed it to her. "Unless you recognize the language?"

Methos kept half an eye on Cory and Alysse, mentally grimacing when he saw Cory pull out a packet of paper from his shirt. He could only hope they were from one of his older journals, instead the most recent one, but he'd been kept from his cabin long enough he wouldn't put any wagers on it.

Flipping through the pages, Alysse frowned, before shaking her head. "It looks almost familiar, but not enough that I could tell you what it was, or translate it." She carefully folded the sheets again, handing them back. "And if you can't figure it out, should I have a flag of truce made up, for a trip to Port Royal?"

"Probably," Cory says sourly - then reconsiders and grins. "I mean, I might be able to figure them out, given enough time, but Matthew will be **so much better at it**. And I just **know**  he's been dying to see me again."

* * *

When the sergeant comes, breathless and flushed, into Matthew's office, the latter knows it's bad news. When he's told of a ship flying both the Jolly Roger and a flag of truce, he wants to bury his face in his hands, drink off one of the bottles in his liquor cabinet, and go to bed until Cory and his ship are long gone. Unfortunately, this is not to be. Left unsupervised, only the good Lord knows what Cory might do to Port Royal, and if his precious ship is fired upon, he will do the worst he can. Granted, Cory is not the Kurgan, so there will be no mass slaughter - but whatever he thinks of will undoubtedly be equally as disruptive.

Nodding in acknowledgement to the sergeant, he gets to his feet and goes out to the wall to look. It is Cory, no way around it, and so with a sigh he heads down to the dock, intending to keep his former student clearly in sight for every second of his visit.

Alysse is at the wheel as they sail into the harbor at Port Royal, her shoulders itching as they come abreast of one of the British Navy's ships. Watching the sailors and marines on their decks as she guides the ship to a berth at the docks, giving the orders to bring them up close. She hates being in port, but this is one of the few that she knows she can safely step off the ship.

Leaning against the rail, Methos has never been so glad to see dry land, even if he suspects that his life isn't going to be any less complicated for being in port. Not when he can recognize Matthew of Salisbury standing on the dock.

Cory cups his hands to his mouth as soon as he's within hailing distance.   
"Matthew! How the hell have you been?" 

Even from yards away, he can see his teacher rolling his eyes - and since Matthew would never sully his dignity by shouting across the ocean, has to wait until they're docking before jumping onto the pier. Matthew, of course, tries to preserve a dignified reserve, but Cory grabs hold of him anyway. He's missed the man, he always does - and besides, one of the joys in his life is tweaking Matthew's nose. It is, therefore, inevitable that he would grab his teacher in a thoroughly undignified embrace.

"Put me down, you bloody rogue," Matthew demands. "What in God's name possessed you to come in here flying both of those flags?"

"We picked up an interesting sort of fellow on our travels." Matthew's seen this light in Cory's green eyes before - it's the gleam of a curiosity that simply **will not**  be denied, and only God knows how many deaths it's led Cory into. "Says he knows you," Cory continues, "and he has a truly fascinating diary that I want you to read for me."

It is no surprise that Cory has so little respect for another's possessions. What is surprising is the figure Matthew can see leaning against the rail of Cory's ship.

Methos waits for a gangway to be put down before he walks off the ship, every inch the British gentleman. He nods his head to Matthew, spine ramrod straight. "Salisbury."

Alysse isn't far behind, grinning as she perches on one of the pontoons the ship is tied to, simply listening to the conversation for now. She'll be back on the ship before evening, despite the relative safety of Port Royal, not entirely comfortable on land.

Matthew resists the urge to scrub his face with his hand. Not only is he saddled with Cory and bloody Alysse, but with one of the most irritating Immortals he's ever met, and that includes his student. Which, really, is saying something.

"You could have told me it was _him_ ," he hisses at Cory, reverting to Old English in his frustration.

"Him who?" Cory looks entirely too interested for **anyone's**  good, but is diverted as the Immortal Matthew knew as William Piers gets a little further ahead of them than Cory is apparently comfortable with, and hurries to catch him up.

"You're not going anywhere," he hears Cory say. "You still owe me a ransom, remember?"

Matthew closes his eyes. If he'd known that digging Cory up all those centuries ago would have caused him this much trouble, he'd never have felt guilty about hanging the bastard in the first place.

"It's rather difficult to forget, _Captain_." Methos gives Cory an irritated look, using his long nose and height to advantage. "I gave you my parole. Are you saying it's worthless?" Which, in many ways, it was. If it weren't for his journals, he'd vanish into Port Royal as swiftly as he could.

He knows Matthew remembers him, the annoyed hiss at Cory made that abundantly clear. It had been why he lengthened his stride, drawing Cory away before Matthew can share the name he knew him by. He'll have to find a way to keep Matthew from sharing that name - and the sort of age that goes with it - with Cory.

"I won't go that far," Cory says cheerfully. "But you're a practical man, and the only repercussions for breaking that word would be my irritation, which, I'll admit, is easily forgotten." For him, holding a grudge is about as easy as grasping a fistful of water, save in very specific circumstances. An escaped hostage, Immortal or no, would be nothing more than a very minor annoyance, especially as Matthew - and the copied journal - are on hand to assuage his curiosity. "So - what is it that my revered teacher knows about you that you don't want me to know?"

"What makes you think there's something he knows that you don't?" Methos raises an eyebrow, refusing to give away more than he has to.

Alysse takes the opportunity afforded by Cory pestering their guest to loop her arm through Matthew's, beaming innocently at him. "Tell me, Matthew, is there a beach near here that I can find some properly green coconuts? I promised Cory I'd make some lambanog the next time I'd access to coconuts. Or maybe just tuba, as it doesn't require a still."

"There's always something Matthew knows that I don't," Cory laughs. There are only thirty years between himself and the onset of his teachers' Immortality, but Matthew has **interests** , and tries to learn things, which has never been Cory's metier, unless those things apply to more efficient thievery. Besides, unlike Cory, Matthew was taught by a Druid woman more than a thousand years his senior. It makes for a different interpretation of the world, especially as Matthew was, in mortal life, the beloved only son of a major nobleman, whereas Cory met his Immortality for shooting one of the King's deer in order to stave off starvation.

"Because what Cory needs is more alcohol," Matthew says dryly. Cory is brilliant in certain areas - namely, those which involve retrieving someone else's property - and alcohol tends to exacerbate that brilliance, making it more difficult to control.

"Perhaps I should have specified, what makes you think there's something Salisbury knows _about me_ that you do not." Methos rolls his eyes, shaking his head slightly. "Other than, perhaps, my parents." The name he went by when he ran into Salisbury the last time, the fact he was older than either Salisbury or Cory. Though at least the man didn't know how _much_ older.

"Of course." Alysse grinned. "You're welcome to join us in drinking it, Matthew."

"Matthew's kind of an idiot when it comes to ancient languages," Cory says, blinking innocently up at Linwood. "Knows all of them, even the ones that weren't around when he and I were young." He hadn't meant to admit that he'd steadily copied his way through most of Linwood's journals, but to him, strategy has never been as important as the joy of the moment.

"Because being drunk with you and Corwin and William bloody Piers sounds like a fantastic idea," Matthew grouses. "I have a garrison here depending on me, and if I let Corwin persuade me into one of his idiotic drunken revels, God alone knows what will come about as a result."

"Is he?" Methos snorted. That would be rather a surprise to him, though now he had confirmation that Cory had - as he'd more than suspected, as much as he'd been kept out of his cabin - at least looked at, and likely copied, his journals. "It might be nice to have someone's assistance in translating the books, then."

"Piers? I thought his name was Linwood. Edward Linwood, he called himself." Alysse patted Matthew's arm, standing up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. "You could just supervise, you know. Be the stern chaperone to ensure nothing naughty or illegal happens."

"My presence," Matthew says drily, "has yet to restrain Corwin from doing anything he felt like doing." It's almost true. He'd been eager to take on a student, as an Immortal of fifty. Now, years later, his main attitude towards his first and most frustrating student is one of amused tolerance. "I **hanged**  him once, and still, any authority I have over him is the authority he permits me."

"Or you could just tell me what they say," Cory says cheerfully. Accusations of moral failings have never really bothered him. "Satisfy my curiosity, and it's a king's ransom for you; I'll leave you on Port Royal and sail away blithely, provided you tell me the truth."

"I do have to try, you understand. I promise, though, it wouldn't be an utter waste of your time. If nothing else, tuba is quite a lovely drink, and not too intoxicating." The distilled lambanog was a bit more intoxicating, but she doubted she need mention _that_.

"If I knew what they said, I might be inclined to tell you." If he wasn't a paranoid bastard bent on surviving. And survival meant keeping people from knowing who he was.

"See, if I knew what they said, I wouldn't have to keep pestering you," Cory says, grinning. "I'll find out, though, even if Matthew **can't**  translate for me. I've a gift for languages, you see. French in two weeks, Russian in four, Arabic in three." He smirks. "Wouldn't it just be easier to come clean?" He weighs Linwood with his eyes, then grins. "I've a copy of most of them, you realize. The whole bloody trunkful. Plenty of material to translate."

"You swear?" Matthew asks, giving her a gimlet eye. He has no desire to be drunk out of his mind in the presence of Cory, Alysse, and William bloody Piers. It's entirely possible that he'd wake up as a fugitive the next day rather than as the military commander of Port Royal, especially given Cory's tendencies towards larcenous altruism.

"On the shifting tide." Alysse smiled sweetly up at him. It was the truth... if she were willing to cut Matthew off at a reasonable number, and didn't look the other way if Cory decided to spike the tuba with something stronger.

Methos looked down at Cory, his expression fading into colder lines. "I think you have rather an inflated opinion of yourself, sir." It could be worse, of course. He could have the journals that detailed his life with the Horsemen with him. And despite the fact the language they were written in was dying when he was originally writing them, he preferred those staying out of the hands of anyone, mortal or immortal.

Cory just grins. The attitude would most likely have offended Matthew, but he himself has been stealing his way across the known world for four centuries, and has had all sorts of imprecations hurled his way.

"Maybe I do," he admits, still smiling. "But maybe I don't - and wouldn't it be easier to tell me rather than to have me find out on my own? You can ask Matthew - I'm not the sort to give up once my curiosity's been engaged. Grudges mean nothing, but for an unanswered question, I'll go to the ends of the earth."

"Fine," Matthew says, annoyed. "The beach is a half-mile north. And I'll be there, even if only to keep you and Cory from robbing my city blind and incoherent."

Alysse laughed, loud and cheerful. "I promise, I won't rob the city blind." Any individual, or Matthew himself... well, she hadn't promised not to rob _anyone_. Or the fort, perhaps. That might be entertaining, if she could manage it.

Methos snorted, still not giving Cory the answer he wanted. He wasn't about to make it easy for Cory to find out what he'd written. He lets his steps slow, instead, so Matthew and Alysse catch up with him. "Your student is dangerously persistent, Salisbury."

"Tell me about it," Matthew says, dry as dust. "And you've aroused his curiosity, which puts his larcenous instincts to shame." He shakes his head. Cory's always been a challenge and a reason for both despair and pride. "I **hanged**  him the first time we met, you understand. Centuries later, and he's still doing his best to drive me mad." He glances at Piers, apparently idly. "What is it he's so determined to find out, anyway?"

"Everything," Cory says cheerfully from behind him. Matthew resists the urge to dump him on his arse.

"Didn't you learn better than to want to learn **everything**  in Venice?" he asks.

"Nope," Cory says, grinning. "Burning at the stake is temporary, oh magister mine."

The Latin term does nothing to prevent the memory of the fear Matthew had felt seeing his student dragged to a pyre and burned alive. That Cory seems unable to take anything seriously had never been a greater blessing. He seems to handle mortal wounds in the same way that mortals handle bruises; something temporary that will pass, easy to ignore. And suddenly, he blinks. He'd seen William Piers practically disemboweled, and there had been nothing but annoyance and pain in the man's eyes. He's never put the connection together before, but Piers and Corwin both look at pain and even mortal death as an annoyance. For Corwin, it's a product of personality and carelessness and self-assurance and Immortality. He can't help wondering what causes it in Piers.

"He's copied the journals I'm carrying, and is under the distinct impression I know what they say, despite my assurances that I've not translated them yet." Methos shook his head at Cory. "Further, he claims you're rather brilliant at ancient languages, such as those the journals are written in."

Some of which he wouldn't expect many Immortals alive now to be able to read, even those who made a study of languages. Speak, perhaps, but literacy is something that hasn't always been widely promoted. Nor always as useful as simply speaking multiple languages.

"The one's written in what looks like an older form of Sanskrit, you know. You could always ask my assistance, since that's the base language for the one I learned as a young Immortal." Alysse shrugged when Linwood shoots her a sharp look. "The islands on that side of the world have always been my first home. I figured it was in my best interest to learn at least a couple of the local languages, written as well as spoken. Easier to keep from being cheated, that way."

And to read what some of her crew had written, and tried to hide from her. The man had claimed he was writing the stories down so he wouldn't forget them when he went home. To tell his children. She hadn't been sure she believed him.

"He's not lying," Matthew allows. He's been trained since his earliest mortal days to exercise every part of his brain that he could, and languages - and the different ways in which people think - have always been a special interest of his. He can read all sorts of things that his mortal contemporaries think forever beyond the reach of scholars.

"Though - with Corwin, it's the same sort of the thing as the cat killed through its own curiosity. He just wants to know what's going on. There's no real intellectual depth behind it." He ignores Cory's indignant disclaimer, and plunges forward. "Leave him to his own devices, and he's likely not only to discover your secret, but to blunder into a thousand different disasters on the way. Satisfy his curiosity, and he'll likely let you be."

Methos pressed his lips together, sliding a calculating look at Cory. Still keeping his secrets close to the vest. Even if he decided to tell Cory, he certainly wouldn't do so here. He didn't want a spectacle. "And burning the ship is likely to cause a little more trouble than I care to attract at the moment."

"Burn my ship and I'll - " Cory draws back from saying 'have your head', because really, he won't. He agrees with Fitz - the Game is a bloody nuisance, the price paid for Immortality rather than the purpose thereof. "I'll abandon you somewhere *very uncomfortable*. Like France."

Methos smiled serenely. "I like France." And France was on a continent, not an island, and gave him plenty of opportunities to go somewhere else. Anywhere else, very nearly, depending on how long and how far he wanted to travel. "If, of course, you could reach it without a ship."

"I hate France," Cory says darkly, and sees Matthew nod out of the corner of his eye. "But if you like it, I'll have to think of something else." He grins. "After all, I can always steal another ship."

"I didn't hear that," Matthew says sternly. "For Christ's sake, Corwin, **must**  you?"

Corwin pretends to consider for a moment, then nods. "I'm actually afraid I must," he says gravely, then laughs. After a moment, Matthew, reluctantly, joins him.

Methos knew if Cory kept trying to find someplace unpleasant, he might actually succeed in finding someplace Methos truly would hate to be left. Or figure that keeping Methos on the ship was a worse fate than abandoning him someplace.

Alysse chuckled, shaking her head before she gave Linwood a sly look. "Oh, Cory, did you know our dear Mr. Linwood has also been known as William Piers?" She grinned at the annoyed look Linwood shot her. "Your esteemed teacher doesn't seem to think too highly of him."

"Under certain circumstances, he's more trouble than Corwin," Matthew growls, exasperated with all three of them. "And both of them together is just asking for disaster. Something like a tidal wave, or maybe the Kurgan stopping in."

Alysse shrugged. "Well, the Kurgan would require a ship to get here, wouldn't he? And you'd have at least some warning of a tidal wave. The water recedes first. Quite a bit, sometimes, if it's a large one."

"Trouble, am I?" Methos gave Matthew one of his better innocent expressions. "But I've always been on my best behavior." Trouble just had an unnatural affection for him, particularly when he was near other Immortals for any appreciable length of time.

"Unlike Corwin," Matthew sighs. "You just seem to attract disaster." His face darkens. "And the Kurgan **does**  have a ship - at least, that's what I inferred from the report that landed on my desk last week. A pirate ship, even," he adds sourly. "The description of the captain was unmistakable."

"See?" Cory says cheerfully. "It could have been worse, Linwood. You could have ended up in the Kurgan's hands."

Methos grimaced at the idea, though he was fairly certain he'd have survived an encounter with the Kurgan. If nothing else, then by shooting him, and dumping him into the water, and never mind hiding his skills. And knowing he was in the area put a different spin on his plans. The sooner he was off that ship, and safely on dry land, the better. And preferably not an island.

Alysse muttered something rude in her native language, wondering if it might not just be as well to keep herself a bit more sober than she'd intended to be that evening. "I hope someone puts a shot through the magazine of his ship, then. _That_ bastard is one I'd rather not encounter, myself."

"I wouldn't mind encountering him again," Corwin says, green eyes suspiciously bright. Matthew winces. He'd almost forgotten that particular incident, though he's willing to wager that the Kurgan hasn't. Certainly Corwin hasn't; he's launching into the tale with a brilliant grin and an expressive flight of hands.

"He came after me in Bruges. I was there - well, I was stealing things, naturally. Anyway, I'm not fond of challenges at the best of times; I planned to politely tell whoever it was that I wasn't interested and go on my way. Except that the Kurgan isn't the sort to listen to 'I'm not interested'. I hadn't a pistol, so I decided that running was the better part of valor. He chased me - of course, that's what the Kurgan does if you try to run. I ducked into a dyer's shop to avoid him, and when that didn't work, I threw a vat full of pink dye at his face, and slipped away while he was trying to claw the color out of his eyes. I saw him from a distance a week later, and he was still bright pink."

Alysse laughed, shaking her head at Cory. "I'd have loved to see that, at least, if it didn't involve being on land for more time than I enjoy." She chuckled again, the thought of dying the Kurgan bright pink entertaining her. "I tend to prefer just to dump them into the ocean, if they're not terribly persistent."

"There wasn't an ocean handy," Cory says lightly. "The dye was more amusing anyway."

"You won't have a vat of dye in the middle of the ocean," Matthew reminds him.

"No, but I'll have pistols and cannon," Cory says. "I'm not facing that monster over drawn swords."

Methos nodded in absent agreement, though his was more a desire not to have that particular quickening rattling around his skull than anything else. He had enough history of himself being what Cory would call a monster without that of someone like the Kurgan.

"I'll second that. And I think, on that note, perhaps a trip to the beach with some nice coconuts would be best, yes?" Alysse grinned at Cory. "I did promise tuba, after all."

"I'm going to regret this," Matthew sighs, absently returning the salute of a passing patrol.

"No you won't," Cory says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "When have you ever regretted drinking with me?"

"When have I *not*?" Matthew says drily.

* * *

Alysse laughed, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she headed in the general direction Matthew had indicated for the beach. Shedding her boots and pistols once they were there, eyeing the coconuts in the trees a moment, looking for the best ones for her purpose. It didn't take long for her to shimmy up the one with the best crop, cutting them down and letting them drop to the sand, careful to make sure they didn't hit each other. Still green and young, and full of liquid.

Methos followed them reluctantly, though he supposed an isolated beach might be better for telling Cory as much of his secret as he was willing to tell. No matter how persistent the man was, he wasn't going to tell him he was the oldest of them, at least as far as he was aware.

"So. When did you meet Matthew?" Cory asks. "And what did you do to him? I'm usually the only one who gets that particular blend of tolerant, exasperated despair out of him," he adds cheerfully. "It's that knightly sense of discipline."

There was a long moment of silence while Methos found a suitable place to sprawl on the sand, a largish piece of driftwood at his back. Relaxing, and abandoning the mask of Edward Linwood for now, though he still hid most of what he was.

"He was a very new Immortal at the time, and I'd come bearing beer for Cierdwyn." An apology for some small trouble he'd since forgotten. "It really wasn't all that spectacular."

Alysse listened with half an ear, as she dropped back to the sand, carefully puncturing the coconuts, carving out a hole in each, and setting them upright in the sand to let them ferment. Curious herself about Linwood - or Piers, or whatever his name was.

"That explains a bit of it," Cory allows. "Matthew was terribly stodgy before he took me on, and I ground away a few of the more tedious knightly virtues."

"I can **hear**  you," Matthew reminds him. Cory just grins at him and turns back to Linwood.

"So you know Cierdwyn. And to think I believed all that crap you were spouting about women back on the boat." He shakes his head. "She's quite something - though I don't think she's too fond of me."

"She doesn't dislike you, Cory," Matthew says patiently. "She just thinks you're an idiot."

Methos refrains from pointing out that Cierdwyn isn't the only woman he knows, and is, in some ways, a good deal less dangerous than some others he's known, not all of them Immortal. "Linwood would have those attitudes, Cory," he says instead, letting one corner of his mouth quirk up in a wry smile. "He'd be less than a century old, and still smarting about losing all he had before he became Immortal."

"Nice," Cory says appreciatively. "You'll have to give me some pointers. I'm not that good at long-term disguise."

Matthew snorts. Corwin's own personality is entirely irrepressible - God knows he himself has tried, repeatedly, to repress it.

"It's not a tactic that works for everyone." Methos shrugged. "And I'll keep some of my secrets, thank you." The layers of disguise, that should take a lifetime, or longer, to peel away. Long enough that he'd be far away and in another persona before another Immortal figured out they weren't dealing with a lucky amateur, or maybe a well-trained Immortal with a few centuries under their belt.

"You're no fun." Corwin actually *pouts*. Matthew shakes his head.

"Corwin, leave off pestering him." He regrets his intervention almost immediately, as the bright green eyes turn to him. 

"Then I shall pester you," Cory declares.

"No," Matthew says, "you'll go help Alysse with the coconuts. Or I shall drown you in the surf." Corwin, visibly sulking, complies.

"I apologize," Matthew says, watching Corwin's retreating form. "Despite my best efforts, he never did learn manners. Or anything else in which he wasn't interested, for that matter."

Methos shrugged. "Manners don't bother me." And he didn't always bother with manners. It all depended on the circumstances and the company. He looked at Matthew a moment, weighing his options. Deciding to wait on asking Matthew to pay his ransom, if it would get Cory to let him off that damned ship with his journals. "He's certainly learned something of how to survive, though, if he's still around. Even if it's simply when to cut his losses and run because he's pissed off the wrong person."

"Maybe. He's no slouch with a blade, though he pretends to be. Frankly, though, I think he's alive thanks to luck more than anything else." He shakes his head. "The whole Kurgan episode, for example."

"Luck only goes so far." Methos twitches one corner of his mouth up in amusement. "Though it certainly helps." He flicks a glance over at Cory and Alysse. "A method of avoiding fights is better. Like her. I've heard of her before, if only rumors. Never heard of her willingly stepping onto land."

And the Immortal who was willing to challenge another on open ocean was rare. It didn't make sense to risk your transport burning into the water around you, after all.

"Corwin's method of avoiding them is to shoot his opponent, bury them, and then leave the area. It's effective in the short-term, but it tends to lead to grudges," Matthew says. He tilts his head to the side. "And you? How do you avoid challenges, then?"

"Depends on the Immortal." Methos shrugged one shoulder. "Holy Ground, running, hiding. Some it's harder to hide from, but it's never proved impossible before."

He's also resorted to putting the other Immortal out of commission for indefinite periods of time. A well, a sarcophagus. Once, he'd managed to lure another Immortal into an area where he knew avalanches were a risk, and then had the luck to avoid it entirely himself. He wasn't sure if that particular Immortal had thawed out yet, though.

"Mm. For some of us, running's not really an option," Matthew notes. Even facing the Kurgan, he'd have to trust to his skill and stand his ground. He wouldn't be able to live with himself, afterwards, if he did anything else.

"Survival is more important to me than some notion of honor." Methos could have been commenting on the weather for all the emotion in his voice. "Running is always an option."

"For some," Matthew acknowledges. "Some of us, though - running isn't an option. Even from the Kurgan." He's never run from anything in his life, not once, and he won't, not even to save that life.

"I'd prefer to avoid the Kurgan, if I can." Methos grimaced. "Immortals like that are irritating, at best." Dangerous, and persistent, at worst. He stretched out, looking over at Cory and Alysse. Unsettled still, and hoping Cory would be satisfied with what he'd given him. "Do you think he'll keep asking questions I won't answer, now that he knows as much as you do about me?"

"Not a chance," Matthew says, laughing. "Cory's like a dog with a bone when his curiosity's tickled. He'll follow you to the ends of the earth until he's satisfied, and he's not under the illusion that I'm omniscient." He slants a glance at Piers. "Besides, I'm curious myself. There's more to you than meets the eye, or even than met the eye the last time we met."

Methos shrugged. "I'm just a man, trying to survive. Nothing more."

"Crap," Matthew says, unusually crude. "Corwin's an ass, but his instincts are good. Too good."

Raising an eyebrow, Methos gave Matthew a bland look. "We'll see." He was afraid of that, and he didn't like the idea that Cory would figure out who he was, even if he hadn't given him all that many clues. It was, however, possible. Particularly since the idiot had copied his journals. Even if he couldn't read them, if he figured out just how old the languages were, he'd know more than made Methos comfortable.

Matthew just nods. He will see, if Corwin's instincts are anything like as good as he believes them to be.

* * *

Alysse grinned at Cory, pointing her knife at the coconuts that had already been cut open. "Did you bring something to spike Matthew's tuba? Otherwise he'll do his best to stay sober, I'll wager."

Cory grins, and pats his side. "Spirits. From Russia, no less. They make a brew there that will get even my revered teacher drunk off his noble ass."

"Oh, that sounds excellent." Alysse carefully removes a plug from another coconut. "It'll be an hour, give or take, before it's fermented enough to drink. And don't let it sit all night, or it goes to vinegar."

"It won't last that long," Cory promises. "If I have to, I'll pour it down his throat."

"That should be entertaining, if nothing else." Alysse chuckled softly, setting the last of the coconuts into a well in the sand. "Help me find some fuel for a decent bonfire, and we'll get that started while the coconuts ferment."

Cory nods amiably, and follows after Alysse, out of earshot of the other Immortals.

"Linwood's hiding something," he tells her, bending over to pick up a piece of driftwood. "Something big. I think he wrote those journals himself. He's old, Alysse - old enough that Matthew and I are callow youths, and that's part of it, but not all of it."

Alysse frowned, eyeing some dry palm fronds for tinder. "Some of those languages have to be older than I am, certainly, but that could simply be his learning them later." She glanced at Cory a moment, before picking another frond. That the journals were written in older languages was a puzzle, but she wasn't entirely certain it would be a good idea to poke at it. Not that it would stop her. "And you know, that doesn't necessarily make him all that old. I've spent near two millennia on the ocean, since before I could remember."

Cory stops dead in his tracks. Something about Alysse's last words is ringing like church bells in his mind. _Since before I can remember_. He's heard all the legends, all of them, from Matthew as well as from Cierdwyn, and it's a matter of seconds before he realizes what the connection is. He grabs Alysse's arm, pulls her close. "Alysse - _what if he's Methos?_ "

It's a ridiculous idea, but then, Cory's had ridiculous ideas before, and some of them even turned a considerable profit.

"Methos?" Alysse glances at where Linwood is sitting with Matthew. "Methos is just a legend. Ancient when I met my teacher, only a story to him." She pauses, shaking her head. "Do you really think he could be the oldest of us?"

"Why not?" Cory demands. "Cierdwyn has a friend who claims that Methos was his teacher, and Ramirez is real enough. And really, who pretends to be young for self-protection, save a man whose age is a threat to him in and of itself?"

"That would be a good reason to pretend to youth," Alysse allowed, glancing at Linwood again. "If he is, I certainly don't want to be the one to propose it. Someone like that could kill to keep his secrets. I would, in his place."

"I'll do it," Cory says, irrepressible. "Later. After all of us are good and drunk."

"I think we'll need to spike his drink, as well, in that case. I, however, would much prefer to be sober." Alysse figured that sober, she'd be able to get herself out of danger, if any manifested, in one piece.

"You," Cory says, "can be as sober as you like. I, on the other hand, didn't bring this flask all the way from bloody Moscow just to stay sober on a night like this." He grins. "Relax. He knows I'm not interested in his head, and I can convince him that I'm not even if I have figured him out." He thinks. It's worth a shot, anyway, and if it doesn't work, at least he'll go out drunk.

"I figure the best way to convince him _I_ have no interest in his head is by going the other way if he decides that he wants yours." Alysse shrugged. "I'm not passing on my tuba, though, not after putting in the effort to make it. Just the spirits." She started dragging the palm fronds back toward Matthew and Linwood, raising her voice. "Come on, Cory, lets get a proper fire started, shall we?"

"With pleasure," Cory says, and manipulates flint and steel until there's a merry blaze at his feet. "Well?" he says, lifting his voice so that it can be heard by Matthew and Linwood - Methos? - he'll find out, he's sure of that. "The alcohol won't drink itself." With a pickpocket's skill, he pours spirits into several of the coconuts, and hands them off to Matthew and Linwood, keeping one for himself.

Methos sniffs at the coconut he accepts, and frowns a little before shrugging, and taking a swig from it. He's not surprised to taste something that doesn't strike him as coconut, though he could be mistaken. It's still a sweet drink, refreshing despite the alcoholic content. "Good drink, thank you."

Alysse chuckles, raising a coconut of her own. "Not the best way to make tuba, but it suffices." She takes a long draught of her own, settling onto the sand, keeping Cory between her and the other two Immortals.

Matthew can taste the sharp undercurrent of whatever Corwin's added to the tuba, and he gives his student a pointed look before raising his own coconut to his lips. Corwin, damn him, just winks before draining his own coconut in one long draught.

"That hits the spot," he says, and reaches for another. It's going to be a long night, Matthew thinks, especially if Corwin is sampling his spirits himself. Corwin is, if anything, more dangerous when drunk.

Alysse keeps her consumption slow, enough to be buzzed, but not enough to be properly drunk, watching the three men, and offering stories of her own as conversation veers in that direction. Tales of pirates and raids and oceans on the far side of the world. Keeping a close eye on Linwood, wondering if Cory's right, and the man is the Methos of legend. A man who has at least five millennia on her own two. Probably more, from the tales she remembers from her teacher.

Cory waits, the snake under the orchid, letting his own consumption lag far behind Linwood's and that of his teacher, until both men are laughing easily. Then he speaks. 

"Methos. Catch!" And he throws the man a coconut.

Drunk as he is, Methos still reacts with a speed he's trained into muscle and bone, rolling away from the flying missile, his mirth fading in an instant as he comes up into a crouch. Watching Cory over the fire, aborting the move toward the knife in his boot. He knows he's given Cory the confirmation he's looking for, but at the moment, it's better than being injured by a flying coconut. Less embarrassing.

"Your student, Salisbury, is _far_ too perceptive for his own good," he says dryly after a moment, shifting his weight so he's sitting once more. Not any less dangerous, but willing to give Cory a chance to demonstrate he's intelligence to go with his perception.

"I **knew**  it!" Cory says exultantly, then throws his head back to laugh with the sheer joy of it all. Instinct, it seems, has served him yet again. He fixes Methos with intent, curious eyes. "So - were you really Alexander's military advisor? And did you help build the pyramids?"

Matthew, for his part, nearly drops his coconut, especially when Corwin takes out a small flask from his jacket and takes a long swallow before returning his attention to - Christ, to _Methos_. He wants the answers as much as Corwin does.

Methos rolls his eyes, looking up at the night sky with a long-suffering expression on his face. "I am just a man, Cory. I'm not some font of knowledge or wisdom. Most of the stories are just that. Stories." He looked across the fire at the younger Immortal, the flames creating eerie shadows on his face. "I'm just a survivor, an observer."

He hadn't always been, and sometimes he did choose to get involved with the mortal world, flirting with the chance he could be remembered by history. Stories which he could refute, unless someone managed to read his journals.

"No one's just anything." Alysse dug her knife point into her current coconut, prying it apart to get at the flesh inside. "And not all stories are untrue, are they?" She had been trying to remember all the stories her teacher had told her, and at least one was evoked by the play of light and shadow. The sort of story told to warn, to keep a reckless student in line. A story she had always dismissed as myth.

"The Horsemen," Cory breathes. It's not a phrase to be spoken out loud, especially with one of them sitting casually at their fire. "Bloody hell."

For his part, Matthew has to force himself not to react. The man sitting next to him is a murderer, a hundred thousand times over. And yet - Ramirez counts him a friend, and Ramirez' judgement is always good.

"Men who washed the world in blood, taking what they wanted, and leaving destruction in their wake." Alysse shivers, shaking her head after a moment. "My teacher spoke of them like they were real, but... that's why I always assumed Methos was a legend, Cory. Because if he was a legend, so were the rest of them."

Methos stares into the fire, listening to the echo of fear in Alysse's voice. "They're still out there." He remembers the names the Greeks gave them, the various forms of death the legends made them out to be. "All of us, death on a horse. Invincible together." At least while humanity was still more nomadic and rural than urban. Cities were rather more difficult prey for even Immortals.

It's enough to make even Cory shiver, drunk and fearless though he is. "I think..." He pauses, regroups, continues. "I think I met one of the others, once. Dark-haired, with a scar." He traces a finger down from his eye. "He was more frightening than the Kurgan, though he never drew his sword against me." He'd withdrawn from that particular scheme with alacrity, and fled to more salubrious parts of Europe without looking back.

That made Methos chuckle, giving Cory a darkly amused smile. Kronos was unpredictable at times, though he had an inkling what Kronos had seen in Cory. Why his brother hadn't killed him out of hand. "Better to meet him than one of the other two." Caspian was insane, and Silas... he'd be just as happy if people avoided Silas. The one of his brothers he still liked, one of his oldest still-living students.

"He frightened me," Cory says flatly, "and not much does that."

"Only because you're an idiot," Matthew says, and the familiar, friendly derisiveness is enough to banish the shadows Cory remembers from Koraeth's ice-blue eyes.

"And you're not much better," he says, grinning, and tosses a scrap of greenery at Matthew, who catches it without apparent effort. Cory takes another long swallow from his flask, then hands it to Matthew, who regards it with suspicion.

"Is this the extra bite in my tuba?" he asks. Cory just grins, no shame in his face. Matthew sighs, then takes a swallow - and coughs. "Bloody *hell*."

"Thank the Russians," Cory says. "I think it's the weather. They can put back as much of this by volume as an Englishman can in beer."

That Kronos had frightened Cory wasn't a surprise, and Methos shrugged, leaning back enough to look up at the night sky again. Listening to the banter between Cory and Matthew, and smirking a bit when Matthew coughs at his taste of vodka. "It's cold on the steppe in winter. You'd want something warming if you spent any time out there, Cory."

Cory wrinkles his nose. "Too long. A decade and a half, before I realized that I could do no real good. The Russians are a tragedy wrapped in pain wrapped in suffering. They brew good liquor, though," he admits. "Though winters there are quite intolerable."

"Perhaps." Methos actually likes the winters there, if not for the weather. More for the fact he can hole up somewhere and no one thinks it unusual for him to ignore the world for months at a time. He still prefers somewhere tropical for the weather, and near enough the water to have all the benefits of the breezes the ocean's proximity ensures.

Alysse snorts, scooping out more of the coconut she was working on. "Anything which leaves me land-locked for that long is intolerable." She points the knife toward Methos, though she doubts he can see it, sprawled on the sand as he is. "You can keep such places all to yourself, old man."

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2009.


End file.
